Author: Lotus_Lili

A sneak peek into the images captured on Divine-Mothering’s August Session 1, Aug 4th. I can’t wait to blog the individual stories and share these women’s voices with you!

The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a media frenzy with several blogs publishing articles about Divine-Mothering and while it’s all exciting to get attention, the very best part is to start receiving messages from people who have been positively impacted by these photos and stories. The blog’s reach is growing, our voices are getting louder, and you ARE getting the point across!

Women everywhere want love themselves!

And you know what? Now, no matter where you are, you can share your story on Divine-Mothering. I am very pleased to announce that I am launching a Submissions Section to the blog where women everywhere can share their photos and voices. Check out the Submissions Section HERE and share your story Today!

An now on to these lovely mothers <3

Divine Mother { Sandra }

Divine Mother { Leah }

Divine Mother { Ashley }

Divine Mother { Rebecca }

#GoddessesInTheStudio

Thank you, ladies, for participating! After this session I felt such a humongous sense of peace. I know we are making a difference! Thank you so much for sharing yourself with Divine-Mothering and the world! <3 <3 <3

I will be blogging about each of their mini sessions in the coming week and I absolutely can’t wait to share more.

When I talk to the participants, I can see that no words could ever put into context the love that they feel for their children and the joy they experience as mothers. Interviewing Teresa was that type of an experience. She spoke filled with emotion, her words getting lost in the endless space that was radiating with happiness and love. It’s a wonderful thing to witness.

“My high point is just being her mommy.

I guess nothing ever…

It’s an amazing feeling and I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“A low point is having no support, but being here has been empowering. Mom2mom and getting together with other moms has helped so much. Being with other moms, feeling like we’re all the same…”

Teresa and her daughter took a break from interviewing to play the “I love you” game. I think we all know that one. Just saying “I love you” back and forth, pronouncing the words are quickly as your breath can spare, until everyone erupts in giggles.

When I asked her about her identity and how it had grown with motherhood she replied with:

“It’s my reason for being. My husband tells me all the time that I was made to be a mother.”

“It’s a great feeling. I can’t put it into words. It’s so amazing.”

Teresa, you have such a beautiful loving spirit. I loved capturing your joy for motherhood. Thank you so much for participating in this project and sharing yourself with us.

“We lost two babies before my son. The losses were 5 years apart and they were both partial molar pregnancies which is really unheard of to have multiple polar molars. It’s a rare genetic thing. So to have it a second time was really unexpected.

Right around that time my sister got pregnant and had my nephew. I really had it in my mind that if I don’t have any kid she would be my everything. He was the first nephew born and he was just really special.”

Some tears happened, and that’s ok.

“So after loosing those two and then getting pregnant with my son. It was perfect.

He’s a really celebrated child… And then to have her and have perfectly healthy pregnancies and perfectly healthy children… I can’t ask for more.”

“I was thinking about the reason why I wanted to participate in this project and all I can think of is that right around the time I became 30 I decided that it was time I stopped worrying about the things I wasn’t and start loving the things that I was.

Everything feels ok now. I don’t think I ever had days where I feel ugly anymore.

“I want my daughter to grow up to know that she’s beautiful, that when she has kids she might change, but she has the right to feel beautiful and sexy no matter how big, hot little, how stretched.”

Erin, you are an amazing inspiration. I love your confidence and energy and the love you have for your children is just bursting out of you; beautiful. Thank you so much for participating in this project and sharing yourself with us.Repeat after me,

He was born a little early, we weren’t planning on him coming yet. We were pretty excited. ”

“Pregnancy was more difficult that I thought it would be. It was a fairly easy pregnancy overall, but the changes that went through my body I wasn’t prepared for. I had always been very confident in myself but then I started gaining weight, started getting stretchmarks, and my confidence plummeted. I went from someone who was strong and felt like I knew what I was doing to to rather soft and unsure of myself.

It took me a really long time into my pregnancy to gain some confidence back and to realize that while some people may like all of the changes… not everyone does. He’s very much worth all of the changes I’ve gone through.”

“Finding out he was a boy was really exciting. Holding him for the first time was amazing.

I went from a very long labor to a very quick C-section. Having my husband there talking me through it was so important. He got to go and cut the umbilical cord and then they brought him back and put him on my chest. That was absolutely amazing.”

“I’m learning every day how to deal with a tiny human.

I don’t know if I’ve realized any changes in my identity yet. I’ve always wanted to be a mom. It feels kind of natural.”

“All the changes are worth it. I think I let the pressures of society… Stretchmarks aren’t pretty. Weight gain isn’t fun… I let those things get to me a lot during pregnancy. Now that hes here… They are completely worth it.

I can show him how I build myself back up.”

Stacey, I hope you continue to grow and learn as a mother and maybe we can build ourselves back up together! Enjoy your brand new little miracle. Thank you so much for participating in this project and sharing yourself with us.

Kathryn emailed me her journey after our session. So I will leave you here with her words, a beautiful story of healing.

“There are two parts of my life that drew me to this project—growing up, and marriage. The first formed my ideologies about life and being a woman, and had a significantly negative impact on my body image and my sexuality; the second RE-formed and and reshaped those values and brought me to where I am today. I used to be an uptight girl who felt she was ugly, and that her body was useless and something to be ashamed of. Now I am an empowered mother, unafraid of intimacy with my husband, and much more confident in my body’s beauty.”

“I was raised down South in a Conservative Christian home. My father divorced my mother when I was a little girl, and I barely saw him. When I did, I felt unwanted and unloved; a burden. I longed for the families other children I knew had. I wanted to be the “Daddy’s Princess” that I saw on t.v. I wanted to know I was beautiful and cherished. Instead, I was jealous of the relationship my little sister had with our father. He got it right with her, and it was painful to watch.

Everywhere I looked in my family, I felt unloved…or at least not loved in the way I was longing for. I felt unseen too. My mother did the best she could to raise me and my big sister, but she was always working and didn’t have time to “play” with me. Because of my mother’s hurt from the divorce, she often acted in ways that were harmful to my developing self-esteem; although she had no idea how her actions would affect me. I always heard her cry and say she’s “fat and ugly.” She would never go outside with me because she didn’t have the energy, and didn’t want anyone to see her. She NEVER went swimming with us, even though she owned a swimsuit. Whenever we would go shopping, I would pick her out clothes that brought out her features—instead of buying and wearing them, she continued to wear her scrubs from the hospital. She covered her body and was ashamed of her stretch marks and C-Section scar. On top of that, I constantly heard how a man would “never love her”; especially because of the way she looked. My mother did not mean to hurt me with how negatively she viewed herself…but she did—GREATLY. I felt as though I were the cause of her “ugliness”. If I would not have been born, my mom and dad would still be together. Those thoughts continued to haunt me into adulthood.

I was just a little girl longing for affection. I wanted my mom to be happy and just be my mother. I didn’t care what she looked like…I wanted her time. I didn’t want to constantly hear about my father and how he hurt her, and how ugly and unloved she was—I loved her! Why couldn’t she see that? I was too young then to understand the impact my mother’s negative self-esteem would have on my own. Outside influences growing up also had a significant impact on my negative body image. I was bullied constantly from a very young age…an outcast. I did not “fit in,” and everyone made that known. I had no friends in school. Those I held on to for a while took advantage of my loyalty. Every day in high school I was told how ugly and worthless I was. Told that nobody would care if i died. On Valentine’s Day, I was the girl receiving fake love letters so they could watch me cry. But the worst was being told that NOBODY would ever want to marry me. I was considered unworthy of love, so I had trouble loving myself.”

“I wanted to die. I never physically hurt myself, but I wished that God would let me fall asleep and never wake up, or get in to a car crash. I just wanted my sorrows to end, and to be in Heaven with Him. I knew I was God’s child, and that HE loved me; that’s the only thing that kept me going. Not only was I bullied at school, but I also endured physical and emotional abuse from my grandmother whom I lived with. Everyone had left me but her. Due to this, I was involved in friendships that were unhealthy as well. I kept getting hurt, and allowing myself to be hurt because it was what I was used to—it was my comfort zone. I saw myself as ugly and worthless. Despite the destructive view of myself, I did not run to “men” to fulfill my attention needs. I still had one thing that I was proud of, and hadn’t been taken from me—my virginity.

Growing up in the church, I was not exposed to healthy and proper sexuality. I was just told that sex is dirty and wrong until marriage. Unfortunately, the Church does not realize that this teaching negatively affects young Christian women. Many married Christian women have issues being intimate with their husbands because they’re ashamed of their bodies, and afraid of its sexuality. We’ve been told to cover up, so as not to make a brother stumble. We’re told that it’s OUR fault if a male lusts after us. We carry this shame, while Christian boys often bear little to no responsibility for their own actions…Yet then we women are supposed to instantly release a lifetime of conditioning when we get married and suddenly believe sex is now a beautiful, NOT shameful act; AND be confident in letting our husband take joy in our bodies? Yeah, it’s hard! Modesty is an ATTITUDE, NOT a style of clothing. Which brings me to the second part of my story—MARRIAGE.

Having been told I was worthless for years, and that I would NEVER find a man who met my standards, (which by the way, that man would have to significantly lower his standards to want to marry me) I was beginning to feel hopeless. I doubted that Mr. Right would ever come for me…And I was only 20.

My deepest desire was to be married. To become a wife and mother. I met my husband, (who met EVERY one of my standards) and we were married 6 moths later. I knew he was the man God had saved for me, and I the woman for him. He accepted me and all my emotional past. He understood me, but most of all, he made me confident, and brought out the beauty that had been so deeply hidden within me. He made me realize that I was lied to my whole life. I DO matter. I AM loved. I AM beautiful. And I am worthy of respect. I thank God constantly for my incredible husband. He was so patient with my intimacy issues. It was hard not to feel shameful when we were together; it was embedded in my subconscious. It took 2.5 years, counseling, and the spiritually healing birth of our son, for me to finally enjoy and believe that making love to my husband was a beautiful and glorifying act…NOT shameful. I could finally rejoice in my body also being his; and let him love me. I no longer feel ugly, or worthless, or unloved. I do not wish I was never born—I love myself and I love life!”

“Motherhood has healed my spirit and body. Physically I sometimes struggle with my body image because I do not look like the “typical mom”, I don’t have the normal “mom bod.” I was unable to get beautiful maternity pictures because I barely showed. My breasts did not increase in size (not even during breastfeeding!) I gained a total of 15 pounds, all of which I lost during the birth. I have no “tiger stripes” or stretch marks on my belly…and yes I do in a way feel left out of motherhood for not having them.

Although I do not have any outward scars related to childbirth; I carry around inward scars invisible to those around me. My motherhood journey did not begin with a life, it began with a loss. Three moths after my husband and I were married, we suffered an abnormal pregnancy. We were eager to start a family together, and that dream came crashing down. It was my very first time at an OB office and we were expecting to hear our baby’s heartbeat. Instead, we were told there was no baby growing inside me, but rather a hyatidaform mole, or rapidly growing non viable tissue (tumor) in my uterus. I had a complete molar pregnancy and was scheduled for an emergency D&C two days after. I was fortunate that the doctor caught it immediately. He told me it was very nearly cancer. I was 21.

We hadn’t told our families we were expecting, and now had to deliver devastating news. My family was understanding…my husband’s was hurt that we didn’t tell them we were pregnant. The surgery went well, but I believe my body was psychologically traumatized. Under doctors orders, we were not to conceive again for a year—at the very least 6 months. Preventative measures had to be implemented, which left me emotionally scarred as it went against our personal beliefs. I was blamed by some for what occurred, which left me damaged as well. We did not have time to properly grieve, as several weeks later the military gave us orders for overseas. Our focus shifted. We put the loss in the back of our minds. I know now that I was a mother then. The moment I saw the double lines, I became a mother. And that matters. When we arrived in Germany, I had my birth control removed. The next cycle our son was conceived.

My pregnancy was very easy (except me worrying in the beginning about another loss). I felt the most beautiful I ever have during my pregnancy. I started researching, and from that we began to live a more “natural” and healthy lifestyle. I wanted the best life for our child. I bonded with our son throughout pregnancy. I was determined to have an all-natural childbirth…and I DID! My son’s birth was healing in multiple ways. The joy was indescribable. DIVINE. I now had a son who was solely dependent upon me for nourishment. My body grew life, and now I would sustain that life. It’s absolutely incredible. Our journey definitely hasn’t been easy, but we have just reached a breastfeeding milestone of one year!!! I could not have done it without the support of our local mothering community, and especially my husband. His unwavering support encourages me to take part in projects like this. He appreciates and recognizes the beauty and power within a woman and her body. He is there by my side every step of the way.”

“Every woman’s background shapes who she is today. No matter where you came from, you have the power within to change and transform your views. I still hold on to my Christian values, and am modest even when I’m not fully clothed. The Church needs to appreciate women’s bodies and the power given to them by God. Don’t shame a woman for breastfeeding her child without a cover, by saying she’s “immodest”, or by making her feed elsewhere. Encourage and uplift her as a mother. We are part of the body of Christ too. And our bodies are a beautiful temple of the Lord, to be appreciated—not torn down. No matter if Christian or not, we as women are part of a community. Please always remember: I DO matter. I AM loved. I AM beautiful. She matters. She is lovable. She is beautiful. YOU matter. YOU are loved. YOU are beautiful. Together we can change the world!”

Kathryn, I hope you realize that you have one truly amazing “mom bod”! Thanks so much for sharing this story with us and participating in this project. You are amazing!

“I was married 2 1/2 years before we decided to have kids. We didn’t have to try for very long and then I was pregnant.

With my first son’s birth I didn’t know any better and was forced into an induction because my doctor was going to Disney World the next week with his family and I didn’t know any better. Oh yay! I thought, I get to meet my baby!

And then I had a whole lot of complications. I almost died. They found a bunch of stuff they should have seen earlier and then breast feeding was really difficult.”

“Despite the issues, I was still able to breastfeed him for 21 months, but I needed lots and lots of help and that didn’t come from my doctor, it came from La Leche League.”

“My high point was my second son’s birth. I had him here, in Germany, at St. Johannis. It was a 4hour labor. He was easy. I didn’t even have to push, he just came on his own. No complications, no almost dying. He’s nursed great and still no end in sight.”

“I have to remind myself how amazing it was. I grew livers, and hearts, and eyeballs, and ears, and whole bodies. When I look at my stretch marks and the baby weight, I have to remind myself that I made 2 babies with this body. One is almost a preschooler and the other a very independent toddler. I’m only hoping for no ER trips while my husband is away on TDY… My husband keeps reminding me that they are my tiger stripes.”

“I’m a little terrified to be here to be honest. I can’t drop those last extra 10 or 15lbs without starving myself. I want to be ok with it, I want other moms to be ok with it.”

Oh Allison, you are so incredibly beautiful. I loved your energy and high spirits despite the vulnerable experience. Truly fearless! Thank you for coming out to see me and participating in this project.

A sneak peak into the images captured for Divine-Mothering’s Photo+Interview Series, July 23rd.

A full studio with a lot of energy and of course some heartfelt stories. I leave you here with some images to ponder over as I work on the individual blog posts. These women are amazing and fearless! For this sneak peak I decided to go with a theme, and that was infectious smiles! Love them.

Divine Mother { Allison }

Divine Mother { Kathryn }

Divine Mother { Stacey }

Divine Mother { Erin }

Divine Mother { Teresa }

#GoddessesInTheStudio

Thank you, ladies, for participating! I always feel so full of love and energy after each session, thank you so much for sharing yourself with Divine-Mothering and the world! <3 <3 <3

I will be blogging about each of their mini sessions in the coming week and I absolutely can’t wait to share more.

“It’s been a wild ride. I started with twins. They were born 8 weeks premature, emergency C-section, preeclampsia, I almost died… It was crazy. And then they were fine!

I breastfed them. No one believed I could do it until I did it.

Then I had my next son. That was also a wild ride. It was a very traumatic birth and we thought we were done. And then my big surprise!”

“At that point we discovered that I had a bleeding disorder. It was a very high risk pregnancy. But he ended up being my easiest delivery. A picture perfect birth. He came so fast we didn’t have time to get in the water. But of course he has been the hardest child… but he was my fourth so I knew we were going to get through it.

I’m trying to live day to day. It’s belly laughs, dirty hands and feet, water balloons, ninjas…

The more kids you have the faster they grow up.”

“I was so determined with my first. They were going to be fine, they were going to be great. I wanted them to reach their milestones early; roockie mom mistake. With this one I didn’t even want to put him on the ground…

It’s seeing them become people.

It’s also that you grow up faster. You’ve been there. You have matured as a mother and it’s not your first rodeo.”

I have a sense of responsibility. Knowing that I have this knowledge. I have a responsibility to share it.

After the twins were born I was doing my masters degree and got involved with Mom2mom. It was actually something that happened with my mentor that made me really angry and I had to write a letter. That’s how I started advocating for other women. I thought, if I have to advocate for myself, I will do it for other women too.

I’m now the executive director of Mom2Mom Global. We have so many people wanting to start new chapters.

Everyone is uncertain. You just never know. You think you got it. With my fourth I thought, preemie twins…I got this! Then he had colic, dairy issues, all kinds of stuff. My husband and I were like, wow, this is worse than twins.”

Amy also followed up with an incredible article she’s written to be published in Return to Mago blog in August 2015.

Something we touched upon via email but not during our interview is the loss of her womb. Amy recently had a hysterectomy, due to medical reasons. “It’s a journey for me to find my new center. This has been a time of tremendous growth and accepting of new responsibility in completing the life cycle of Maiden, Mother, Crone.”

I wanted to share an except of her work, and can’t wait to see her complete article published soon. Pure poetry, Amy.

For four days more, as the days begin to shorten in the thirty-fifth year of my life, I will bleed my last moon blood. I will wonder at the mystery of it, of our bodies, of the moon, of the Great Mother and the cycles that constantly regenerate our lives and our world. I will meditate. I will engage in rituals of caring for myself. I will enjoy the gifts of my relationships, of the beauty around me, of the permeability between energetic planes. I will do the work laid out for me on my new path with renewed vigor and the confidence that comes from being a Crone and knowing that somehow, all the resources I need are already there, I only need to call them.

-Amy Smolinski. Excerpt from a personal essay to be published in Return To Mago in August, 2015

Thank you so much Amy for participating and being a part of this project. Thank you for sharing yourself and your beautiful energy with fellow women.

Repeat after me,

I am an amazing woman.

I am beautiful.

I am strong.

The light within me is divine.

If you are looking for breastfeeding support in the local KMC area, please check out the Mom2mom website and FB. If you are not local, as Amy mentioned, new chapters are starting up, more info here.

I asked Danielle about her high point and low point within her motherhood journey. Her answer as simple.

“The low point is easy, lack of sleep… We are now just getting enough sleep that I feel ok again… I was a working mom for a long time. The high point was becoming a stay at home mom.”

When I asked her to expand on why she felt this way, she explained how she had been taught to pursue a career and hadn’t given much value to motherhood. Not until she became a mother herself. She expands in an email she sent me after the interview and I will leave you here with her incredible words.

“The message I received when I was growing up was that girls can do anything they want to do — especially if it was something that was traditionally dominated by men. In many respects, the message I absorbed was that traditionally masculine activities were somehow better than traditionally feminine activities — a career was better than motherhood, hard science was better than arts, playing sports was better than dancing. Without even realizing it, I soaked this in and it subconsciously affected all my choices in life. I chose to play a lot of sports as a kid – soccer, softball and basketball – and loved it. I chose to major in physics and math. I chose to join the Air Force. I could do anything the boys could do. All this time, I was adamant that I wasn’t going to have children. I didn’t see the value in it. The message I had internalized was that having a career, and especially a technical career, was better or more important than being a mother.”

“Now two births, two miscarriages and a 15-year career later, I have completely reversed that belief. I am proud and grateful for my time as a physics student, active duty Air Force officer, reservist and engineer, but I now believe these activities pale in comparison to the miracles that are reserved only for women. My mothering journey has led me to realize the gift that is my female body — the gifts of my hormonal cycle, of pregnancy and birth, of breastfeeding, and of continuing the human species. These are special gifts to be honored. I no longer aspire to do what men can do. I feel blessed to be able to do what women can do.

The high point of my mothering journey thus far has been becoming a stay at home mom. I worked two jobs (as an engineer and an Air Force reservist) until my daughter was 3.5 and my son was over 1. Gathering the courage to leave my career behind was a huge struggle for me, an act of willpower of overcoming all the subconscious beliefs I collected over the years. It was hard to do. It was necessary. It was beautiful.”

“I could see my daughter falling apart as I worked. It got to the point where her separation anxiety was such that I could not get up from the dinner table to get a glass of water from the open kitchen without her melting down. Becoming a stay at home mom has allowed me to mother my children in a completely different way than I could when I was working full time. We are more connected as I am more physically present. My children bring so much joy to daily life and I am blessed to be here to experience it with them. I feel so grateful for the magical opportunity to stay home with my children. It has forced me to grow and change to become an even better mother and person and to know and value myself as a woman more. My children have been my light leading me into peace and joy.”

“It took a hard journey of uncovering my truths for me to come into this place of awareness. These photographs hold within them significant meaning for me. They are a visual representation of both my struggle and the beautiful place my journey has thus far brought me to. They are a milestone marking how far I have come. For me, these photographs honor the miracle of my female body, honor my bond with my children, and illuminate the value of motherhood. For that, I thank you.”

Danielle, thank you so much for sharing your incredible journey as a mother and human. I completely agree with your sentiment. It’s not about working vs SAHM. It’s about the message that we receive in this society that puts so much more value on what are considered “masculine” activities while also putting down the “feminine”. This is why women’s voices are needed. This is what this project is about. Giving back motherhood and being a woman the value and respect it so equally deserves.

“Growing up I didn’t think I wanted to be a mom. I didn’t want to have kids. I wanted to adopt and then one day it’s like a switch went off.

Make babies!”

“With him I had a lot of trouble breastfeeding. He was tongue tied and I have flat inverted nipples. Right off the bat we were supplementing with formula. But after about a month I decided I had had enough and we put the formula away. We’ve been breast feeding ever since.

I had to fight to get a supply. My milk didn’t want to come in because his latch was bad.”

“She was born and her latch was perfect. But a few days after coming home I got mastitis. I think it was the tandem nursing, I was engorged for weeks.”

“I’m actually just getting over mastitis again.”

“In this area there is so much support. I remember with my first I would call my best friend every night crying. All I wanted to do was feed my baby and I couldn’t make my body do it.

I was able to see a specialist who was very helpful figuring out the tongue tie, but I feel even more support here.”

“They are my life. Everything I do is for them. Maybe I need to make more time for me, but I’m away from them 8 hours a day for work. The time I have with them, is for them.”

Alisha, thank you so much for coming in and sharing yourself with us. You are such an incredibly strong mother. I loved hearing about your determination to breastfeed and I’m so happy you found the help and support you needed to achieve your goals. You are totally amazing!